Hot start lifts Glenelg girls basketball to big win

The Glenelg girls basketball team felt that it played with a lack of intensity in a 36-29 loss to Centennial earlier in the week.

So the Gladiators made a concerted effort to get off to a better start and play harder against Marriotts Ridge on Wednesday evening.

Glenelg couldn’t have asked for a better beginning to the contest – outscoring the Mustangs, 21-4, in the first quarter on its way to a commanding 59-25 victory.

A key for the Gladiators was their unselfish play. Of the team’s 24 field goals, 16 were set up by assists.

“After the loss on Monday we pretty much agreed that this is not how we play Glenelg basketball,” junior forward Ally Forejt said. “We knew that we needed to pick it up and work together as a team.

“Sharing the ball was a big part of this game. Getting everyone involved was important.”

Forejt and Kristin Yuan each scored 10 points for Glenelg, which moved to 5-4 in the county.

The Gladiators came out on fire in the opening minutes, scoring the game’s first 11 points including back-to-back 3-pointers by Forejt and Megan Taylor.

“I thought that we shared the ball well and we hit our first couple of threes which helped,” Glenelg coach Don Beall said. “Then we pressed them a little bit and we got three or four buckets off of that. That really picked our momentum up.”

Marriotts Ridge (2-7 in county) began to settle into the game in the second quarter, running its offensive sets to perfection. The Mustangs closed the first half on a 9-0 run behind Marissa Davey (game-high 13 points) and Victoria Laveck.

But their momentum wasn’t sustained as the Gladiators went on a 15-0 run in the third to put the game out of reach.